Bloody Kin (6 page)

As Gordon held the door for her, Kate paused and said, “Gordon, forgive me, but I must tell you how sorry I am about Elaine and James. Jake and I both were.”

He closed the door and looked down into her earnest face. “It was a hellish autumn for both of us, wasn’t it, Kate?”

His lopsided grin was wobbly but he took a deep breath as he straightened and walked around the car to slide in beside her. He put the key in the ignition but did not immediately turn it.

“When Rob Bryant called to tell me about Jake, I couldn’t believe it. I’d just had a letter from him three days before. Kate, you must know that if I hadn’t still been laid up in that Mexican hospital—”

“I know,” she said quickly. “The flowers you sent were so beautiful. Did you—I mean, what about Elaine and James?”

“In late October—after the doctors finally let me out of the hospital—there was a little church near our villa that Elaine used to stop in at once in a while. I’m afraid none of us were very religious, but I think she and James would have liked the memorial service.

“There were services for the others, too. Seven other people, Kate. The Dickersons, Jill and Win Harkness, friends the three of us had known for years. Gone. And then to hear that Jake—”

He switched on the ignition, put the Porsche in gear, and eased into the lane. “All I could think about was how James had saved his life in Vietnam, and then a freakish accident on his own land, with his own gun!”

“I know,” Kate said bleakly.

“And now this,” said Gordon as they drove slowly past the packhouse.

“Did James talk about Vietnam much?” Kate asked.

“Occasionally. Especially when he first came home. Not so much in recent years.”

“Do you remember the other two who were on that patrol? A younger man and a Bernie-somebody?”

“Yes, he mentioned them. Why?”

“The man Mary Pat and I found—you didn’t see him, did you?”

“No, but Major Bryant described him; asked if anyone at Gilead had seen him around. He didn’t sound like anyone . . . wait a minute! Bernie? Was
he
the man who was killed?”

“It could be,” said Kate. “I never met him, but Jake told me about that patrol and how Bernie and James killed the sniper. And there were pictures. He had a black mole on his right cheek, too, just like the dead man, only he had a beard back then. Lacy’s misplaced the snapshots Jake sent him, but I think there may be duplicates in the things the movers are bringing tomorrow.”

“It’s probably not him,” said Gordon. “Why would he turn up here after all these years?”

“Maybe he came to see Jake. Not knowing.”

They paused at the top of the lane to wait for a huge, late-working tractor to pass. The sky blazed with silver pricks of stars everywhere except where blanked out by Raleigh’s glow in the north. The new moon was a pristine crescent against the blue-black of the western sky. They crossed the highway. Gilead’s long drive was lined on either side by double rows of tall oaks which were just beginning to push out tiny leaves.

“Odd business,” Gordon said thoughtfully. “Did you tell Bryant?”

“Yes, he’s coming back tomorrow to see if I can find the pictures.”

Gordon drove past the white pillars of the wide veranda and on around to the study entrance on the west side.

“You know,” he said, cutting off the switch, “there’s a trunk of James’s things in the attic. I remember he had a little chest of war souvenirs. It might give us more information about Bernie. I’ll have a look tomorrow.”

The study had a low wide window and they saw Mary Pat slip into the room and look out at them shyly.

“There’s the reason I’ve had to put death behind me and pick up the pieces,” said Gordon. “Children do make a difference, Kate.”

“I’m counting on it.” The huskiness of her voice made him look at her quizzically. “Yes,” she nodded.

His lopsided grin widened into a delighted smile. “That’s wonderful!” he exclaimed and his smile grew as he circled the car to help her out. “Truly wonderful.”

“What is?” asked Mary Pat from the doorway.

C
HAPTER
7

Lamb is not a meat commonly found on Colleton County tables. Pork is the mainstay of most meals, followed closely by chicken and beef. Pan fish are also favored, as well as any kind of shellfish so long as it can be battered and deep-fried; but eating baby sheep carries outlandish connotations and, as they went into dinner, Gordon Tyrrell had Kate laughing over how he’d initiated Mrs. Faircloth into the mysteries of buying and then cooking a leg of lamb. Kate described Lacy’s reaction to his first grilled lamb chop; and by the time Gordon finished carving, Mary Pat had lost her shyness of Kate and was peppering the dinner with questions about the baby.

“But
when
will it come?” she asked again, her brown eyes sparkling with excitement.

“In four more months—around the Fourth of July,” said Kate. “Independence Day will probably be my last day of independence.”

Mary Pat looked puzzled and there was a brief digression as Gordon tried to explain the significance of the Fourth and American independence.

He was extraordinarily patient with the child, thought Kate approvingly. Although Mary Pat displayed the precocity of most children raised in the company of adults, she seemed unspoiled. The conversation was geared to her level and her questions were taken seriously, but she was not allowed to monopolize.

Seated beneath the crystal chandelier, the little girl looked more like Park Avenue tonight than Tobacco Road. Her dark curls were brushed to a sheen, parted on the side, and held back from her face with a delicate cloisonné barrette. Instead of scuffed sneakers, she wore black patent-leather Mary Janes and long white socks, and her scruffy knit slacks and pullover had been replaced by a white batiste dress smocked with green threads and laced at the waist with a thin green velvet ribbon. Her small face was a blend of her parents’ best features, and when she cut her eyes at Kate without moving her head as Patricia once had, or when her lips quirked in one of Philip’s smiles, Kate was captivated.

“You know one nice thing about my baby?” she told Mary Pat. “You two will be double cousins.”

“What’s that?” the child asked.

“It means you share great-grandfathers on both sides.”

Mary Pat was startled. “Sides?” she asked, looking down at both elbows.

“Let’s see you explain that,” said Gordon, amused.

Kate requested paper and pen and the maid produced them. “Southerners aren’t the only ones who keep their bloodlines straight,” she said, and hoped she would remember all that Miss Emily had told her that morning.

Mary Pat slipped from her chair and came to stand by Kate’s shoulder.

“Let’s say this is you,” said Kate, sketching in a small stick figure with twin ponytails. “And this is the baby.”

On the other side of the sheet appeared a bundle with a tiny smiling face.

“Here are your mother and father, and here’re Jake and me.”

“Will you die, too, after the baby comes?”

“No, sweetheart,” she said before Gordon could admonish Mary Pat.

“Now here’s your grandfather Franklin Gilbert and your greatgrandfather Gilbert. Where you have grandfather Franklin, the baby has grandmother Jane. Jane and Franklin were brother and sister and had the same daddy. Your mother and Jake were first cousins so you and the baby will be second cousins on your Gilbert side. Got that?” she asked as her pencil deftly sketched amusing little stick figures.

Mary Pat nodded.

“Okay. Your dad and my mother had the same grandfather Carmichael, so you and I are second cousins and the baby will be your second cousin once-removed on the Carmichael side!” Kate finished triumphantly.

“Bravo!” Gordon applauded and lifted his wine glass in toast.

Mary Pat carried the tablet to the other end of the table. “Where are you, Uncle Gordon?”

Gordon touched the Patricia figure with the pencil tip. “This is your mother, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I can’t draw as well as Cousin Kate, but we’ll let this be Aunt Elaine next to your mother because they were sisters. Then we draw double lines from Aunt Elaine to me and put me in here like this because we were married.”

“Do Uncle James, too, please.”

Patiently, Gordon drew in the figure and lines that included his brother on the crowded chart.

Kate began to regret that she’d brought up the subject of kinship, but if Gordon was pained by this mention of James and Elaine, he hid it from his niece.

“No, honey, we can’t put lines to Sally. She’s not kin. But here’s Uncle Lacy.”

The entrance of dessert sent Mary Pat back to her chair. Their conversation turned to kittens and Kate invited her to come back the next afternoon to find the kitten Lacy had given her.

“We’ll have coffee in the study,” Gordon told the maid and as they left the dining room, Sally Whitley appeared on the landing above.

She gave Kate a shy smile and beckoned to Mary Pat. “Time to get ready for bed.”

“Off you go,” said Gordon.

Still carrying the tablet, Mary Pat scampered up the wide carpeted stairs. “Guess what, Sally? I’m going to have a second cousin on both sides!”

Gordon laughed as they entered the study. “I hope you’re prepared for the whole neighborhood to know.”

It was a welcoming room. Books lined the fireplace wall and a fire in the hearth banished the slight chill that had appeared after the sun went down. The lamps cast mellow pools of light upon a faded oriental rug and over comfortable leather chairs and couches.

The maid—Kate thought she was one of Bessie Stewart’s nieces, but she wasn’t sure—followed with the coffee tray and then withdrew.

Gordon brought a bottle from a side cabinet. “Brandy in yours?”

“No, thank-you. I probably shouldn’t even be drinking this much coffee. I will join you in a cigarette, though.”

He held a light for both of them. “I should think cigarettes would be verboten.”

“They are,” she sighed. “I’ve cut down to less than half a pack a day, but I just can’t seem to quit altogether. Especially after a meal when there’s someone to talk to. And
that
,” she added grimly, “is the first positive thing about life with Lacy Honeycutt that I’ve come up with. After a week of facing him at every meal, I’ll probably be cured of ever wanting another cigarette.”

“Don’t be bitter, Kate. It’s been rough on him, too.”

She shrugged and Gordon stooped to put another log on the fire. He seemed awkward for a moment.

“Was it the left leg you broke?” she asked.

Gordon nodded. “It’s pretty much healed, but the doctors said I could expect some continuing weakness there for at least a year. I’ve acquired quite a collection of canes for my old age. Midge and Knowland Whaley—did you ever meet them?”

Kate shook her head.

“They sent me a gold-headed cane from Cannes and Sean Riley—”

“A redheaded Irishman with a professional brogue?”

“The same. He turned up at the hospital in Mexico with an authentic shillelagh. I was still pretty groggy, bandaged from head to foot like King Tut’s mummy, but damned if he didn’t make me laugh before the nurses chased him out.”

“How long were you actually in the hospital?”

“Eight weeks total, I think it was. From early September to late October. The concussion kept me in a coma for almost ten days.”

He fingered the scar along his jawline. “This took twelve stitches, they tell me.”

Kate made a sympathetic sound.

“The worst thing about it is that the whole day was wiped out of my memory.”

Gordon resumed his seat on the couch and stared into the flames.

“I remember dinner on the terrace the evening before. James and the Harknesses were spending a few days with us and Cyrus Dickerson called and invited us to go sailing the next day. It was a ninety-footer, teak deck—beautiful thing. Crew of three. The Harknesses loved messing about in boats. Jill’s father was one of the stewards at Newport.

“And I can remember someone saying ‘red skies in the morning’ because the sun came up a bit pink, but after that, it’s all a blank. Concussion does that, I’m told. Erases the most recent memories.

“There was a McDermott woman, Cyrus’s friend, who filled me in on the actual squall—the lines tangled and the mast snapped before they could reef the mainsail. It was total confusion, she said, and she doesn’t recall the exact sequence of events or even who was where. One of the crew members survived, too, but his memory’s just as spotty.”

“Is it important?” Kate asked gently.

“Yes, it is rather. You see, Kate,” he said apologetically, “I don’t know if I was a hero or a coward. How did I manage to save myself and not save Elaine or my brother?”

“No Tyrrell could ever be a coward,” said Kate and it was, miraculously, the right thing to say.

Gordon gave her a grateful smile and they began to speak of Kate’s plans to remodel the packhouse.

“Unless you have someone specific in mind, you’re welcome to use Tom Whitley,” he offered.

“Doesn’t Gilead keep him busy?”

“When summer comes, it probably will. Just mowing the lawns takes two full days as I recall, but most of the farm’s leased and there’s little grounds work right now. He’s supposed to be quite handy with a hammer and saw, and I gather they could use the extra money.”

“Are the Whitleys local?”

“No, California, I think. Ever since Patricia died, Gilead’s caretakers have been State University kids, so I assume Whitley was recommended through the school’s financial aid office and Rob Bryant vetted him for the trustees. In fact, Rob staffed the whole place when I told him Mary Pat and I were coming back to Gilead. Then at the last minute, the Mexican nursemaid balked at coming north, so Sally stepped into the breach. It was supposed to be temporary, but Mary Pat’s taken to her, and the doctor says we shouldn’t introduce any more change than is absolutely necessary.”

“Miss Emily mentioned Mary Pat’s trouble,” Kate said.

“She’s getting better. Fewer nightmares. But she still believes things can change their appearances overnight.”

“Like the kitten,” said Kate.

“Kitten?”

“That’s how she came to be with me when I found the body. Lacy gave her a kitten and she brought it back because she said her kitten had white feet and that one’s feet were different. They all look the same to me.”

“They probably are,” Gordon sighed. “At Christmas, I—or rather Santa Claus—gave her some bedroom slippers shaped like little rabbits. She loved them. Wore them all day long for three days, then got up on the fourth morning and declared they weren’t the same bunnies. Their spots were different, she said, and since then she won’t touch them.”

Through the open doorway, they saw a flash of white on the staircase and Mary Pat in pajamas and fuzzy pink slippers darted across the hall. She paused upon the threshold, suddenly shy again.

Gordon held out his hand. “Did you come to say goodnight to Cousin Kate?”

“Yes, sir,” she answered in the way of well-mannered Southern children. The corners of her mouth tilted upward. “And will you tell me a story?” she asked winningly.

“Not tonight,” he began, but Kate forestalled him.

“You mustn’t change bedtime ritual on my account. It’s been a long day and bed begins to sound like a wonderful idea to me, too.”

She stood and Gordon patted his pants pocket. Car keys jingled.

“Let me run you home then,” he said as they walked out into the entrance hall.

“Nonsense. It’s a warm night and I need to walk off some of that delicious dinner. Tomorrow’s my first appointment with an obstetrician in Raleigh and she’ll probably lecture me about exercise and weight.”

“You aren’t nervous about walking through the lane alone?” Gordon asked as the maid appeared with Kate’s shawl.

“Because of the—” She started to say murder but stopped as she realized that Mary Pat was listening to their words.

“Well,” said Gordon. “After all . . .”

“I doubt if he’s lurking around,” she said dryly. The maid held her shawl. Kate thanked her and slung it loosely about her shoulders before stooping to Mary Pat’s level. “Goodnight, sweetheart.”

The child gave her a quick spontaneous hug, then retreated to Gordon’s legs. He swung her up on his back in an easy movement and hooked his arms under her legs to hold her in place while Mary Pat clasped her arms around his neck.

As they lingered a moment on the wide veranda, Mary Pat rested her head on Gordon’s shoulder and sang softly and dreamily to herself, a song about a spotted pony galloping, galloping.

“At least give me a call when you get home,” said Gordon. “If you don’t phone in a half hour, I’ll come looking for you.”

She laughed and set off briskly down the drive. The night air was a little too cool for ambling, but she knew it would be comfortable once her blood stirred.

Even though the moon was less than first quarter, it gave sufficient light after her eyes were accustomed to the darkness. The gravel drive was quite visible now since the oaks above them had no leaves to block even a pale moon. Azaleas kept their leaves all year through, however, and were bulky dark masses beyond the oaks, impenetrable in their inkiness. Whole armies could camp there, thought Kate, without her seeing them.

Yet she wasn’t consciously nervous. The dead man had a likeness to Jake’s old army buddy; but until he was definitely identified as such, she could consider him a stranger, killed in her isolated packhouse for reasons that were nothing to do with her. Surely the killer had no cause to return.

She came to the highway, crossed, and entered the sandy lane. The westering moon dodged in and out of the pine tops as she passed silently along the rutted track.

Night sounds in the country were quieter, but no less varied than in a city. Wind, pushed through longleaf pines, made soughing murmurs as steady as any flow of traffic. Spring peepers were loud in the creek bottom; dogs barked in the distance; and an occasional car passed on the highway, a burst of music from its radio trailing behind.

To the southeast, a line of Marine Corps helicopters, practicing night maneuvers, flop-flopped slowly across the sky like a string of lost Christmas tree lights looking for a giant tannenbaum. When the sound of their rotors had faded, Kate heard the end of a plaintive bird cry in the wooded triangle to her right. Owl? She knew it was still too early for a chuck-will’s-widow.